


Masked

by Bellatrix_Wannabe_89



Series: Inspired by OQ [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Regina's First Dark Curse, Time Travel, Young Evil Queen | Regina Mills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 15:39:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16043444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bellatrix_Wannabe_89/pseuds/Bellatrix_Wannabe_89
Summary: Day 4 of Inspired by OQ. Based on the amazing  manip by CarolinaMR9 on twitter and outlawqueenmanips on tumblr.Leopold decides to throw a masquerade ball, ignoring Regina per usual. She thinks it's just another boring party, until she meets a blue eyed masked stranger who seems to know a little too much about the queen...





	Masked

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the AMAZING manip by CarolinaMR9 on twitter and outlawqueenmanips on tumblr. I hope I did you justice.

Regina tried her hardest to enjoy the masquerade ball her husband had thrown celebrating the winter solstice.

The lavish gowns and the beautiful masks that covered the eyes of the nobles and royals had always brought her such joy as a child. She would sneak out of bed and marvel at the handsome men and beautiful women moving gracefully along the floor of her mothers castle, their identities hidden behind grandly decorated masks. 

But now, as a reluctant Queen, attending the balls that she wouldn’t be asked to dance at and would be forced to stand meekly in the corner while Snow and Leopold danced and enjoyed themselves brought her only misery and a reminder that she was trapped in this farce of a marriage, raising a child she hated.

Snow was dressed in a white and pink lacy gown with a rather simple childish gold mask while Leopard dawned himself in a jacket in that sickening gold color she couldn’t stomach decorated with white flowers and obnoxious golden colored leather pants. His mask was gold as well, adorned with the white flowers of the White sigil.

Regina herself, having refused to wear any colors of her new house, was wearing a midnight purple mask with black and gold trim that had a rather dramatic large purple feather attached. She had chosen an extravagant strapless ball gown with a purple skirt and a purple corset with black lace trim, coming up just high enough that she was still deemed proper by onlookers but also reminded the crowd she was a woman grown with ample cleavage. Black flowers and vines embroidered on the silky rich fabric ran rampant over the gown.

She knew most of the men and women by their eyes and other features, if not by voice. There was no mystery for her truthfully, which had been half the fun of these balls when she was a child.

After watching her husband dance with his daughter song after song after song, not even bothering to inquire if Regina was even enjoying herself much less if she wanted to dance, she made her way over to one of the side entrances, staring out the clear glass at the night sky while the snow fell in thick white flakes.

Regina walked outside into the courtyard, shivering slightly at the bitter night air as the snow fell around her. She wrapped her arms around her bare shoulders as she cleared off one of the stones surrounding her apple tree that looked so out of place in the secluded courtyard and sat on the stone and peered out over the grounds.

Regina sighed softly imagining a beautiful vision of her just grabbing Rocinante, running away and never look back.

But she couldn’t. She made her choice. She choose magic and power over freedom…

Regina heard the door open and she rolled her eyes to the heavens, not even bothering to look behind her when she told the stranger that this was a private area, and guests weren’t allowed out here.

“The lady looks thirsty,” a man said with a soft rich accent. She didn’t even have to be looking at him to know he was smiling at her.

Regina turned to face the man holding out a glass of red wine, her favorite type of wine, actually. She let her eyes wander over this newcomer.

He was dressed richly. Black leather trousers, a forest green doublet over billowing white shelves that cinched at the wrists with a flowing warm green woolen cape fluttering in the wind behind him.

On his face he wore a simply decorated forest green mask with glittering brown designs etched in. Behind the mask held two ocean blue eyes, slight wrinkles tugging at the sides of the but he looked to be no more than his mid thirties. A far cry from the twenty one year old Queen but he also was thirty years younger than her husband was.

She didn’t recognize him. This man, this blonde haired man was a stranger to her. Granted that was the whole point of a ball such as this, to remain strangers to one another, but she was sure she had known every pompous royal and every snooty noble that had attended.

“I’m sorry, do… do I know you?”

The corner of the strangers lips rugged upwards and he fought back a smirk and a laugh, like Regina had said something hilarious.

“Isn’t that the point of this ball?” he asked her rather cheekily. “To remain strangers?”

Regina just raised a brow at him but he was undeterred.

“Would M’lady like a drink?” he asked her, nodding towards the glass of wine he held.

“I don’t drink red,” she lied. She was not about to take some strand drink from this stranger. Not to mention Leopold had insisted on white wine for this party, despite her dislike for the beverage. How had he gotten ahold of a red vintage anyway?

“Oh you don’t?” he asked, earning himself another crook of her eyebrow. He sounded so presumptive, like he knew she had lied about drinking red. 

“I don’t,” she repeated with a shortness in her tone that he dared to chuckle at before he gave a polite inclination of his head.

“Of course, M’lady.” The stranger took a sip of the wine himself instead and Regina pouted

So it hasn’t been poisoned after all and she had just thrown away a perfectly good glass of wine.

The stranger must have read her thoughts because he offered her the glass again. “Do you drink red now that you know I haven’t done anything to it?”

“For all I know you could have a death wish,” she replied but nonetheless taking the glass anyway. The queen ignored him as he sat down beside her, slowly sipping the sweet red beverage. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him staring at her, his blue eyes locked on her from behind his mask.

Not just staring but it was… intense. Like he not only already knew her but also he was willing to jump in front of an arrow for her.

Truth be told it unnerved her a little. No man had ever looked at her that way, like she was their whole world and the only bit of light in their life. Not even Daniel.

“Is there a problem?” she finally asked the blue eyed stranger, turning her gaze from the snow covered grounds to the man sitting beside her.

“No,” he replied with a soft breath. “I just… you're so stunning, Regina. Even as a young woman.”

The mouthful of wine she had just taken a sip of nearly made an appearance again but she forced herself to swallow, covering her mouth as she coughed at his rather casual remark.

“That’s a bit informal wouldn’t you say?” she asked with all the air of a woman who had been groomed since childhood to be a Queen.

Instead of being deterred the stranger just chuckled, still not taking his eyes off her. “I apologize, M’lady. Not for my words because they ring true but for making you uncomfortable.”

In spite of everything she felt the corners of her mouth tug upwards. “You just keep digging yourself in deeper don’t you?”

“I’m afraid that’s a speciality of mine.”

Regina smiled softly, pushing a brown curl away from her face and she saw an odd look on the strangers face. 

A look of one might say relief that she had smiled at him.

The wind picked up, making the snow blow around them in a brilliant waterfall of white while she shivered in the frigid night air.

Without so much as a word, the stranger unclasped his cloak and draped it around the Queen’s shoulders to protect her from the cold.

She turned towards him, her eyes searching over his covered face.

“Have… have we met before?” she asked the man as she pulled the cloak around her tighter. She buried her face in it, inhaling deeply.

It smelled like forest.

There was no possible way that she hadn’t known this man. This man, this blue eyed stranger, looked at her with far too much love that one should look at the Queen that others whispered foul things about when they thought she wasn’t near…

A twinkle appeared in his eyes while he bit back a laugh.

“I doubt I’d ever forget meeting you,” he tells her with a grin, as if he was sharing some private joke with her.

The two of them sat beside one another for a while, ignoring the going-ons in the castle. It should have been awkward; a Queen and this stranger who seemed to know more about her than she had shared even with her husband, but it wasn’t. It was an easy silence that flitted between them. 

After a while the Stranger sighed, almost disappointed as he turned towards the Queen.

“I’m afraid I have to go, M’lady,” he told her, a faint whiff of regret in his tone. “I have to find a way back home.”

“You don’t want to stay for the rest of the ball?” she asked, struggling to keep the desperation from her voice.

“Unfortunately I can’t. I wasn’t even supposed to make you aware of my presence but when I heard of the ball being thrown and knowing…”

“Knowing what?” she asked the masked stranger.

He bit his lip. He wasn’t supposed to say that, she correctly assumed.

“How rare you smiled during these events,” he finally admitted. “How standing alone while you watching the king and the princess just reminded you of your cage. I just had to give you at least one fond memory, even if it was just a stranger offering you a glass of wine.”

Regina’s face fell and a shiver of fright passed through her. This stranger had nailed everything she felt about these sort of events, as if he had used her own words. 

“How do you know about what I feel during these things?” she asked cautiously.

The stranger opened his mouth before he closed it again. “I… wish I could tell you.” He said each word slowly, as if carefully thinking of each syllable. “But it may put your happiness on an uncertain path and that is something I would rather die than risk.”

Regina rolled her eyes to the dark heavens above her.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Stranger, but happiness isn’t in the cards for me. I’ll never be happy again,” she muttered as she glanced down at the white beneath her feet.

Her words almost seemed to physically wound the man sitting beside her. As if his life depended on her happiness.

Well if that was true his life is going to be rather short…

The man closed his eyes and she could or practically feel the inner turmoil he was going though.

“You will,” was all he said to her. “You will be happy again, Regina. You just… have to open your eyes to see it.”

Regina looked at the stranger for a long while, her eyes bearing into his. He knew something. Something about her, or her past or her…

“Who are you?” she asked again, this time with far less malice and a hint of need.

The stranger just smiled sweetly at the Queen before he leaned in, giving her a soft kiss. The first gentle touch she felt since Daniel died. She closed her eyes, savoring the taste of his lips on hers. 

“Until we meet again, Regina,” he whispered to the Queen. 

“Don’t go,” she pleaded. But when she opened her eyes, the stranger was gone.

 

Years later, as Regina laid in the arms of her thief, she recalled a tale that still brought a smile to her face. How the brazen man who gave her what she thought had been poisoned wine, and how she never gave the man back his cloak and still actually kept it safe in her attic.

She missed the smirk on Robin's face as he listened to the story he knew all too well... 

 

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